Poetry Friday: "On Faith"

I love it when a poem flies like an arrow into you, bringing something to life with words in a way you have never been able to.

"On Faith"
by Cecilia Woloch

How do people stay true to each other?
When I think of my parents all those years
in the unmade bed of their marriage, not ever
longing for anything else—or: no, they must
have longed; there must have been flickerings,
stray desires, nights she turned from him,
sleepless, and wept, nights he rose silently,
smoked in the dark, nights that nest of breath
and tangled limbs must have seemed
not enough. But it was. Or they just
held on. A gift, perhaps, I've tossed out,
having been always too willing to fly
to the next love, the next and the next, certain
nothing was really mine, certain nothing
would ever last. So faith hits me late, if at all;
faith that this latest love won't end, or ends
in the shapeless sleep of death. But faith is hard.
When he turns his back to me now, I think:
disappear. I think: not what I want. I think
of my mother lying awake in those arms
that could crush her. That could have. Did not.

Poetry Friday (or maybe Sunday): "Siwashing it out once in Siuslaw Forest"

I first read this poem in college in my Poetry Writing class. Our professor, Dr. Paul, would have us do something he called "imitation poems:" we were tasked with choosing something (whether it be content, or rhythm, or line length, or mood) from the poet at hand and try to use it in our own work. I remember being struck by the way Snyder seamlessly blends memory with actuality, physical environment with emotional landscape. As I teach Gary Snyder to my high school students and have them complete their own imitations, I continue to be struck by it. Thanks, Dr. Paul.




Siwashing it out once in Siuslaw Forest

         by Gary Snyder

I slept under   rhododendron
All night   blossoms fell
Shivering on   a sheet of cardboard
Feet stuck   in my pack
Hands deep   in my pockets
Barely  able  to  sleep.
I remembered   when we were in school
Sleeping together   in a big warm bed
We were   the youngest lovers
When we broke up   we were still nineteen.
Now our   friends are married
You teach   school back east
I don't mind   living this way
Green hills   the long blue beach
But sometimes   sleeping in the open
I think back   when I had you.

              

Poetry Friday: "The Act"

I love how much this poem suggests without actually stating anything other than this: a flower is considered, then picked.

"The Act" by William Carlos Williams

There were the roses, in the rain.
Don’t cut them, I pleaded.
They won’t last, she said.
But they’re so beautiful
where they are.
Agh, we were all beautiful once, she said,
and cut them and gave them to me
in my hand.

Poetry Friday, New Years Edition: "The Journey"

The Journey

by Mary Oliver

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice—
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world
determined to do
the only thing you could do—
determined to save
the only life you could save.

First Poetry Friday: "Sharks' Teeth"

Teaching Creative Writing in an endlessly inspiring task. Pushing my students out of their comfort zones, and asking them to look closely at poetry to figure out how it ticks, gives me the opportunity to discover new poems and poets that I come to love.

In the past few months, I've LOVED having the opportunity to sink back into poetry and share my passion for it with my students. So now, I'm going to share some of those poems with you.

Welcome to Poetry Fridays.

I discovered Kay Ryan's award-winning book while browsing idly in Northshire Bookstore. I picked it up because I loved the cover. I bought it because I kept snapping photos of every page, entranced by the beauty in her spare language and wonderfully crafted rhythms.

"Sharks' Teeth"

by Kay Ryan

Everything contains some 

silence. Noise gets

its zest from the

small shark's-tooth

shaped fragments

of rest angled

in it. An hour 

of city holds maybe 

a minute of these 

remnants of a time 

when silence reigned, 

compact and dangerous 

as a shark. Sometimes 

a bit of a tail 

or fin can still 

be sensed in parks.

Source: Poetry (April 2004).